(Part 2) Top products from r/Physics

You have a lot of work ahead of you for sure, but this is not an impossible task. First off, I wouldn't worry too much about the Nambu-Goto action right now. Instead, you're going to need to develop quite a bit of background knowledge and mathematical tools.

Sites like Brilliant, and Youtube lectures are valuable resources, but if you're going to be successful in this endeavour, I'd recommend that you put some serious effort into learning from textbooks. The ability to learn from a textbook does not come naturally to most people, but it is a skill that can be developed and will be necessary for you to make much progress in this direction. In fact, I'd say that perhaps the most valuable thing I gained in my undergraduate degree was the ability to sit down and actually learn from a textbook in a systematic way.

The book on String Theory by Zweibach is probably going to be the best resource for you as it's a quite approachable low level string theory book designed for advanced undergraduate students. In order to read and understand it, you'll need to first gain at minimum a popular level, hand-wavy understanding of general relativity and quantum field theory and a mathematical understanding of special relativity, quantum mechanics and electromagnetism.

One book I can't recommend enough to non-professionals wanting to get a semi-serious mathematical understanding of modern physics is The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose. In my opinion, the book is a masterpiece. He starts off with "what is a number", and by the end of the first half of the book has given a serious account of fibre bundles using only the ideas introduced in the book. His explanations are lucid, engaging and very deep. The second half then uses the mathematics introduced in the first half to describe much of modern physics. He has a section where he talks about String Theory, but he isn't much of a fan of it so doesn't spend a lot of time on the topic. However, the mathematics he introduces in the first half are invaluable for understanding quantum mechanics, relativity, quantum field theory and string theory. Roger is a bit of a maverick and has some 'cooky' ideas and opinions that would make many professional physicists blush with embarrassment, but throughout the book he is very careful to clearly say when he is making a controversial statement.

I think if you pick of the Road to Reality, and manage to seriously read the first 15 chapters while also reading (or watching) introductory books / lecture series on quantum mechanics and special relativity and electromagnetism you'll be in a great place to try and get into the basics of string theory.

I was in your position just a couple of years ago, here's what I did.

Start with a mechanics course if you haven't already, it's crucial that you have a solid understanding of physics before you try to learn the advanced stuff.

Learn calc all the way through vector calc. A great resource for this is Professor Leonard (this is calc 3, but he has all of them).

Here's where I learned physics Electricity and Magnetism, I also learned special relativity and basic quantum mechanics at this point (QM is optional, but fun)

I learned linear algebra and diff eqs at this point. I used Khan Academy for this, though I'm not sure it's the best resource out there.

Next, I would recommend trying to take a class on mathematical proofs, when you are reading papers rather than watching videos you will appreciate it. I watched this series because I'm a comp sci major, but if you aren't a comp sci person, just look for a methods of proofs class.

Now it's time for the fun stuff.

Tensor Calculus is what General Relativity is founded on, I found this series to be helpful

So now it's time to get into GR.

This series from PBS Space Time is a great introduction into accurate GR. Their other stuff is great too.

This video from DrPhysicsA steps through the thoughts behind each part of the EFEs and is not the best video, but it helped me.

And that's where I couldn't find any more videos, so I used some text resources.

The book gravitation is the most commonly used textbook for GR as far as I know.

I found this article on wikipedia to be ENORMOUSLY helpful in understanding how to work a general relativity problem. It took me a few times going through it to follow it all the way, but it is great.

Where you go after this really depends on what you are trying to do with GR, personally I find Kaluza-Klein theory to be very intriguing and that leads down the road to string theory.

Good luck

I just want to point out one thing that everyone seems to be glossing over: when people say that you'll need to review classical mechanics, they aren't talking only about Newtonian Mechanics. The standard treatment of Quantum Mechanics draws heavily from an alternative formulation of classical mechanics known as Hamiltonian Mechanics that I'm willing to bet you didn't cover in your physics education. This field is a bit of a beast in its own right (one of those that can pretty much get as complicated/mathematically taxing as you let it) and it certainly isn't necessary to become an expert in order to understand quantum mechanics. I'm at a bit of a loss to recommend a good textbook for an introduction to this subject, though. I used Taylor in my first course on the subject, but I don't really like that book. Goldstein is a wonderful book and widely considered to be the bible of classical mechanics, but can be a bit of a struggle.

Also, your math education may stand you in better stead than you think. Quantum mechanics done (IMHO) right is a very algebraic beast with all the nasty integrals saved for the end. You're certainly better off than someone with a background only in calculus. If you know calculus in 3 dimensions along with linear algebra, I'd say find a place to get a feel for Hamiltonian mechanics and dive right in to Griffiths or Shankar. (I've never read Shankar, so I can't speak to its quality directly, but I've heard only good things. Griffiths is quite understandable, though, and not at all terse.) If you find that you want a bit more detail on some of the topics in math that are glossed over in those treatments (like properties of Hilbert Space) I'd recommend asking r/math for a recommendation for a functional analysis textbook. (Warning:functional analysis is a bit of a mindfuck. I'd recommend taking these results on faith unless you're really curious.) You might also look into Eisberg and Resnick if you want a more historical/experimentally motivated treatment.

All in all, I think its doable. It is my firm belief that anyone can understand quantum mechanics (at least to the extent that anyone understands quantum mechanics) provided they put in the effort. It will be a fair amount of effort though. Above all, DO THE PROBLEMS! You can't actually learn physics without applying it. Also, you should be warned that no matter how deep you delve into the subject, there's always farther to go. That's the wonderful thing about physics: you can never know it all. There just comes a point where the questions you ask are current research questions.

Good Luck!

That's perfect then, don't let me stop you :). When you're ready for the real stuff, the standard books on quantum mechanics are (in roughly increasing order of sophistication)

• Griffiths (the standard first course, and maybe the best one)
  
• Cohen-Tannoudji (another good one, similar to Griffiths and a bit more thorough)
  
• Shankar (sometimes used as a first course, sometimes used as graduate text; unless you are really good at linear algebra, you'd get more out of starting with the first two books instead of Shankar)
  
  By the time you get to Shankar, you'll also need some classical mechanics. The best text, especially for self-learning, is [Taylor's Classical Mechanics.] (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372650839&sr=1-1&keywords=classical+mechanics)
  
  
  Those books will technically have all the math you need to solve the end-of-chapter problems, but a proper source will make your life easier and your understanding better. It's enough to use any one of
  
  
• Paul's Free Online Notes (the stuff after calculus, but without some of the specialized ways physicists use the material)
  
• Boas (the standard, focuses on problem-solving recipes)
  
• Nearing (very similar to Boas, but free and online!)
  
• Little Hassani (Boas done right, with all the recipes plus real explanations of the math behind them; after my math methods class taught from Boas, I immediately sold Boas and bought this with no regrets)
  
  When you have a good handle on that, and you really want to learn the language used by researchers like Dr. Greene, check out
  
  
• Sakurai (the standard graduate QM book; any of the other three QM texts will prepare you for this one, and this one will prepare you for your PhD qualifying exams)
  
• Big Hassani(this isn't just the tools used in theoretical physics, it's the content of mathematical physics. This is one of two math-for-physics books that I keep at my desk when I do my research, and the other is Little Hassani)
  
• Peskin and Schroeder (the standard book on quantum field theory, the relativistic quantum theory of particles and fields; either Sakurai or Shankar will prepare you for this)
  
  Aside from the above, the most relevant free online sources at this level are
  
  
• Khan Academy
  
• Leonard Susskind's Modern Physics lectures
  
• MIT's Open CourseWare

I mostly learned from a variety of sources, as there's not an ideal single text on this avenue of research, IMO.

I found general small-angle scattering references for free here and here, the latter being a PDF document from the EMBL small-angle scattering group. For NSE experiments on these sorts of systems, it's pretty much expected you've already done characterization of your samples via small-angle x-ray and/or neutron scattering

I'd also recommend the NIST Summer School course materials as a good and inexpensive way to get started on the neutron spectroscopy side of things. Most of what I'd seen in terms of texts tended to be fairly pricey monographs when starting out, so I'd either borrow stuff from coworkers or my institutional library. There are advanced undergrad/starting grad student texts on x-ray & neutron scattering - e.g., 1 and 2 - but I didn't find out about them until a bit further into my studies.

As might be obvious, there's definitely inspiration and foundational work to be found in the polymer science literature. I went running to Doi and Edwards, for example, when I realized that I needed more background reading in this area, but I'm sure others have their particular favorites in this and related areas.

Insofar as the bio-side of things, well, I've been doing biophysically oriented research since I was an undergrad. I'd suggest a popular biophysics text as well (either Nelson's Biological Physics or Physical Biology of the Cell ) as a starting point/reference. These are aimed towards advanced undergraduates or new grad students as well, mostly due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topics. Speaking of PBoC, one of the authors maintains a publications page where you can check out the PDFs of his group's work.

I think I'll end there, as I think that should be enough pleasure reading for a little while, at least.

I got the most understanding out of reading Nielson and Chuang's Quantum Computation and Quantum Information.

It delves into what happens and what can be done with quantum information - that is, how qubits are different from bits. Philosophically, I don't think there is anything more important than that; it's nice to see what particles make reality up, but you don't get much idea as to what those particles are actually doing. As a forewarning though: This book will probably push you towards a many-worlds interpretation. Not because they push it; it's just (kind of) necessary to think that way, when considering large sets of quantum information interacting.

In terms of physics, it has only a single chapter dedicated to the direct exploration of Schrodinger's equation. After that, it starts to dig into "what's it like when we have more than one quanta?" which is...well, I can't summarize it in a post. If you would like a PDF copy, I found one online a long time ago, I could PM it to you :)

In any sense: I've had this book for three years now and it is by far the best buy I have made in ever. QI is growing in importance (mostly with regards to the AdS/CFT correspondence in quantum gravity theories) and it is also always nice to know (ahead of time) how quantum computers are going to be working!

You're English is great.

I'd like to reemphasize /u/Plaetean's great suggestion of learning the math. That's so important and will make your later career much easier. Khan Academy seems to go all through differential equations. All of the more advanced topics they have differential and integral calculus of the single variable, multivariable calculus, ordinary differential equations, and linear algebra are very useful in physics.

As to textbooks that cover that material I've heard Div, Grad, Curl for multivariable/vector calculus is good, as is Strang for linear algebra. Purcell an introductory E&M text also has an excellent discussion of the curl.

As for introductory physics I love Purcell's E&M. I'd recommend the third edition to you as although it uses SI units, which personally I dislike, it has far more problems than the second, and crucially has many solutions to them included, which makes it much better for self study. As for Mechanics there are a million possible textbooks, and online sources. I'll let someone else recommend that.

Do you know which fields of physics are you interested in?

If Quantum Information/Quantum Computation sounds interesting, I would look at this book. I used it when I first learned about the topic. It doesn't assume much advanced math, just basic matrix/vector multiplications will suffice.
There's a reason the book doesn't assume much prior knowledge. It has two parts, Quantum Information and Quantum Computation. Roughly speaking the former is physics and the latter is computer science. And usually physicists don't know much about computer science and computer scientists don't know much about physics.


There's also another book, "Q for Quantum", published very recently by Terry Rudolph. I haven't read the book myself (I plan to), but from what he described in an email it might be something you're looking for:


> I have finally finished a book, "Q is for Quantum", that teaches the fundamentals of quantum theory to people who start off knowing only basic arithmetic.

> I have successfully used this method in outreach with students as young as 12, but of course it is much easier when you can have a proper back-and-forth dialogue. In practice it is late-stage high school students I am most passionate about reaching with this book - I believe quantum theory can (and should) be taught quantitatively in high school, not 2 years into an undergraduate physics degree! In fact I would be delighted if the 3rd and 4th year students entering my undergraduate lecture courses already understood as much quantum theory as covered in the book.


Have fun!

First off, read this book! Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Richard Feynman made some really important discoveries in the particle physics world and I think it's cool (and hilarious) to look at the way he thinks about everything, not physics alone.

Secondly, make sure you understand math. Don't kill yourself over it, just remember "physics is to mathematics as sex is to masturbation."

Third, enjoy what you're doing. It's hard to get a lot out of a class or a book if you are just struggling to get through each assignment. Try to make it fun for yourself.
Also, making friends in the field and study groups help a lot. I firmly believe that the classroom is not the ideal place to learn physics. It is a science about discovery and understanding the world around you. Even though other people have done so before, it really helps to sit around with a few people at about the same level as you and help each other find solutions. There's a good reason these guys smoked pipes. It's simply the perfect thing to do while sitting around with others thinking.

Overall, be sure to enjoy yourself. Being a physics major is tough, no doubt, but it's also super interesting and a ton of fun!

The first thing that popped in my mind while reading your post was: 'woah dude, slow down a bit!'. No, honestly, take things slowly, that's the best advice someone could have given me a few years ago. Physics is a field of study where you need a lot of time to really understand the subjects. Often times, when revisiting my graduate and even my undergraduate quantum mechanics courses, I catch myself realizing that I just began understanding yet another part of the subject. Physics is a field, where you have many things that simply need time to wrap your head around. I am kind of troubled that a lot of students simply learn their stuff for the exam at the end of the semester and then think they can put that subject aside completely. That's not how understanding in physics works - you need to revisit your stuff from time to time in order to really wrap your head around the fundamental concepts. Being able to solve some problems in a textbook is good, but not sufficient IMHO.

That being said, I will try to answer your question. Quantum mechanics is extremely fascinating. It is also extremely weird at first, but you'll get used to it. Don't confuse getting used to it with really understanding and grasping the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Those are two very different animals. Also, quantum mechanics needs a lot of math, simply have a look at the references of the quantum mechanics wikipedia page and open one of those references to convince yourself that this is the case.

Now, I don't know what your knowledge is in mathematics, hence all I can give you is some general advice. In most physics programs, you will have introductory courses in linear algebra, analysis and calculus. My first three semesters looked like this in terms of the math courses:

1. Sets and functions; mathematical induction; groups, fields and vector spaces; real and complex numbers, series and sequences, power series; matrices, linear systems of equations; determinants and eigenvalue problems
   
   
2. More on linear systems of equations, eigenvectors, eigenvalues and determinants; canonical forms; self-adjoint matrices and unitary matrices; some analysis (topological basics, continuity)
   
   
3. More on topology; hilbert spaces; differentiation and integration
   
   These were, very roughly, the subjects we covered. I think that should give you some basic idea where to start. Usually quantum mechanics isn't discussed until the second year of undergrad, such that the students have the necessary mathematic tools to grasp it.
   
   A book I haven't worked with but know that some students really like is Mathematics for Physics by Paul Goldbart. This essentially gives you a full introduction to most of the subjects you'll need. Maybe that's a good point to start?
   
   Concerning introductory texts for quantum mechanics, I can recommend the Feynman lectures and the book by David Griffiths. I know a ton of students who have used the book by Griffiths for their introductory course. It isn't nearly as rigorous as the traditional works (e.g. Dirac), but it's great for an introduction to the concepts and mathematics of quantum mechanics. The Feynman lectures are just classic - it's absolutely worth reading all three volumes, even more than once!
   
   EDIT: added some literature, words.

This was the one that we used for Cosmology. It starts pretty gentle but moves into the metric tensor fairly quickly. If you don't have the maths I don't know that it'll help you to understand them but it'll definitely have all the terms and equations. As with Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, the funny haired man himself actually had a pretty approachable work from what I remember when I tried reading it.

​

This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Given the authors reputation for popularizing astrophysics and the title I think it might be a good place to start before you hit the other ones.

So I haven't used his other books but I really enjoyed his QM book in small pieces. It's extremely condensed so I found I got the most out of it when I sat there and worked all the math out between the equations and making sure I understood each step before I went on to the next, which often involved Wikipedia as well. This was different than books like Shankar or Eisberg and Resnick which I often felt I could just sit there and read.

I've heard that most physics people absolutely love going back to Griffiths because he makes very elegant arguments very well. But it's sometimes pretty difficult for a new student to catch everything the first time if you aren't seriously taking your time with it. I think I did get a lot out of seriously working through it though.

oh! oh! I've been waiting to share this. Alice in Quantumland
I read it when I was in 8th grade and it got me hooked on nuclear science. Hardly any equations, just some cool concepts explained through a brilliantly written story.

Edit: ok, it's not a textbook. just something fun to read if you're newly interested in atomic science :)

There are actually a lot of good popularizations of quantum mechanics written by physicists for the general public.

I remember Brian Greene's books having a pretty good conceptual description of relativity and quantum mechanics.

There's also Alice and Quantumland.

Stephen Hawking's books are probably the "classics of physics popularization". Just stay away from the bland looking orange book on page 2 ;) .

The Einstein Paradox was excellent. It explores modern physics concepts (including quantum mechanics) in a series of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Highly recommended.

I've currently not a lot of time so i'm not able to give a thoughtfull answer but there are plenty of books which could teach you special relativity (Carroll takes it pretty much as a prerequisite).
Maybe one of the following helps (but don't be surprised it take a lot of hard work to get some knowledge about it...):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAurgxtOdxY and following

Spacetime Physics - Edwin F. Taylor, John Archibald Wheeler should be quite nice (i've heard)

http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054 maybe this is a good starting point.

Take one book after another till one suits you. I think the only important point is that they have equations inside.

i did my phd in a related field. it seems like you will have enough math and that some more computer programming could be a good thing. the main pitfall in this kind of stuff is that people want to do a bunch of math that is more complicated than it needs to be without tying it back to the biological system.

obviously you will need help from senior people with that, but it seems to me that the best thing you could do to prepare is read a bunch about motor proteins and the cytoskeleton. every cell-biology textbook should have a few chapters on this. i recommend this book if you want something with a bit of math.

if you want, PM me the name of the person you'll be working for. odds are good i know a bit about what they are doing.

What I would suggest:

Introduction to Modern Optics by Fowles. It's short and to the point.

The Oxford Solid State Basics by Simon. The author also has lectures posted on his website that are fantastic. Additionally, Roald Hoffmann has a series of papers that introduce solid state concepts that are useful for chemists. They're very worthwhile reads. Here, here, and here.

Computational Physics by Newman. I find this really easy to read and understand. A lot of people around here recommend it.

Most undergraduate coursework doesn't involve any GR because it isn't a standard part of the curriculum. Some schools may offer an introduction to it at an undergrad level, but it's by no means a topic that undergraduate physics students are expected to be familiar with. As someone else said, even in graduate school you may not touch general relativity if it has nothing to do with your area of study. I do particle physics, but I did take a couple classes on general relativity just out of interest. One was offered in the physics department, the other was in the math department. Although they were teaching the same subject, it was interesting seeing the almost entirely different approach each class took.

If you're interested in learning the math as you learn the physics this is a really helpful book.

I don't know about Jackson's book. I read Griffiths and he was great. I would strongly recommend Griffiths for clarity and reading comprehension. He would generally tell you outright what stuff was important and what wasn't.

Here is his book

I thought of some books suggestions. If you're going all in, go to the library and find a book on vector calculus. You're going to need it if you don't already know spherical coordinates, divergence, gradient, and curl. Try this one if your library has it. Lots of good books on this though. Just look for vector calculus.

Griffiths has a good intro to E&M. I'm sure you can find an old copy on a bookshelf. Doesn't need to be the new one.

Shankar has a quantum book written for an upper level undergrad. The first chapter does an excellent job explaining the basic math behind quantum mechanics .

This is a pretty good reference for most conversions and it's great for double checking that you remembered that formula quickly without having to go through a whole text book.

But it might not be specific enough to nuclear physics.

There's Griffiths and Halzen and Martin which are suitable for undergraduates. They'll teach you how to calculate scattering amplitudes and some phenomenology and stuff like that. Anything more complicated than that would probably require a QFT book, in which case I would recommend Peskin and Schroeder. Ironically, I feel like you would learn QED way better with P&S than any other typical standard model book.

Have you tried the Feynman lectures?. Give them a look since they're free. It's on the lighter side for maths but does sacrifice completeness. Unfortunately, your going to have to learn some form of linear algebra and possibly multi along the way.

Without linear/multi the best progress you can make is getting a wishy-washy feel for things, which from experience really doesn't satisfy. You'r best resources will by far be wikipedia and youtube. They definitely contain the most thought through explanations of intro level material and present the math appropriately.

If you really want a book, Eisberg's Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles is a push but really great for intro level stuff.

I've never used Zetilli so maybe it's the best option and I don't know, but Dirac's book is reasonably inexpensive new and quite cheap used on Amazon. I've got a 3rd edition I found in a thrift shop ages ago and it's actually a very pleasant read too, imo.

Theres good reason for colleges to drill mechanics into kids, because mechanics is the ONLY mathematical model you have a good intuition about. Science and engineering are all about mathematical models of real world systems, to deal with the more complex ones, its a good idea to have a grasp on the simplest one we know.

That said, you'd be surprised at the insanely complex systems you can describe using just F=Ma and waves. They don't teach this at college, because the purpose of introductory level physics courses in college is to cater to the lowest common denominator. One way out is to try and solve real world problems you can come up with, another is to procure a book that emphasis problem solving, i.e uses F=Ma but make you think.

http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Circus-Physics-Jearl-Walker/dp/0471762733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266299520&sr=1-1

IMO : Reading only popsci is not very satisfying. The stuff in popsci is fun, but its a rather experience shallow unless you can actually understand the stuff. It does serve as motivation to get to the actual physics that the popsci deals with though.

>>which break pretty much everything about physics

>According to your understanding you mean

Well, sure -- but I'm in good company here. Physics as pretty much everyone knows it is described by partial differential equations - you can (in principle) calculate what will happen in a given place a little while from now by calculating the time-partial derivative of every quantity you can name, right now in the neighborhood of the particular place you care about. That property is called "locality", and it's fundamental. It means that (for example) the time it takes you to fry an egg doesn't depend on whether Aldebaran has planets.

Even quantum mechanics keeps that formalism, with the added caveat that after you evolve the Universe smoothly with your partial differential equation, you have to do collapse the final state/wavefunction probabilistically. Even that caveat is sort of toothless: quantum collapse is just an approximation to quantum decoherence, which itself is a smooth, local process that happens to migrate state from the outside world into your nicely controlled experiment -- collapse is not strictly necessary to the physics.

The problem is that, if you insert even one closed timelike path into the Universe, all of those partial differential equations cease to be solvable without reference to the global condition of the Universe. Locality goes out the window. Even worse, in cases where there are globally-controlled solutions, there are typically many of them -- so physics literally stops working, in the sense that it ceases to have predictive power. Not to argue by authority, but no less an authority than Kip Thorne has a really nice treatment of how closed timelike paths break everything -- in his popular level book on wormholes, he shows how and why classical physics stops being able to predict basic things like where a thrown baseball will go, if you happen to throw it anywhere near a closed timelike path. (Basically, there are an infinite number of ways the baseball can knock itself into the CTP as it exits the CTP quasi-later, and any of those trajectories is equally likely).

So, yes, "according to my understanding" pretty much everything would break. But that is an informed understanding based on 20 years of schooling and another 20 years of professional astrophysics, and if I'm not mistaken it's pretty well aligned with the scientific mainstream.

The math is more in depth than can be covered in a single post; there are ginormous volumes dedicated to the subject.

For cosmological models the typical solution to Einstein's field equations is the FLRW metric. In the case of expansion and the balloon analogy which gets bandied about the important part is to see how points on an expanding surface all move away from each other, not that the surface is closed. The FLRW metric involves a parameter k which is linked to the amount of mass-energy in the universe. If the quantity of mass-energy is small the overall structure of the universe is closed like the surface of the balloon. If the mass-energy exactly equals a certain critical value then the universe is flat and open, essentially an infinite plane. If the mass-energy is larger than the critical value then the universe has a hyperbolic shape which, it turns out, is quite hard to visualize.

Interestingly, the parameter k is really close to the critical value which determines the large scale structure of the universe. Current data points to k being larger than the critical value, so our universe would have a hyperbolic geometry. This parameter also is linked with the eventual fate of the universe. If the data is correct and k is larger than the critical value then gravitation will never be able to entirely stop the universe's expansion and we will all eventually die cold and alone. If k is smaller than the critical value then gravity will win and we will all die packed tightly into a glorious inferno.

One of my favorite books is Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman there is another version with an audio cd that is a great listen.

For Calculus:

Calculus Early Transcendentals by James Stewart

^ Link to Amazon

Khan Academy Calculus Youtube Playlist

For Physics:

Introductory Physics by Giancoli

^ Link to Amazon

Crash Course Physics Youtube Playlist

Here are additional reading materials when you're a bit farther along:

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas

Modern Physics by Randy Harris

Classical Mechanics by John Taylor

Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths

Introduction to Particle Physics by Griffiths

The Feynman Lectures

With most of these you will be able to find PDFs of the book and the solutions. Otherwise if you prefer hardcopies you can get them on Amazon. I used to be adigital guy but have switched to physical copies because they are easier to reference in my opinion. Let me know if this helps and if you need more.

Alice in Quantumland. There might be a free pdf somewhere online. I briefly checked out this book in high school and it seems like a potentially cute/graspable way to describe physics.

Jearl Walker has a cool book with a bunch of fun physics "problems" (though it seems like a newer printing than mine).

For special relativity, I would check out Landau's The Classical Theory of Fields, first few chapters.

For general relativity, Wald's book is the gold standard, and might be better for you as a mathematician.

Thats honestly why I dont like neil tyson either. he makes more about being a "that kid" prickly guy to generate tension than to actually educate people nowadays.

anyway, that aside, a really good read is Kip S. Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Holes-Time-Warps-Commonwealth/dp/0393312763/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374695711&sr=1-2

it is real physics slightly diluted to help understand, but he doesnt shy away from hard concepts, like Chandrasekhar limit.

I would actually suggest NOT trying to learn about these subjects, at least not on their own. Put in the time to really learn tensors, then co- and contravariance will makes loads more sense!

I found the first 3 or 4 chapters of Schutz's "First Course on General Relativity" to be a great place for teaching these things to myself. You could also take a math methods course that covers tensors.

EDIT: This is the book I'm talking about:
http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345315215&sr=8-1&keywords=schutz+general+relativity

There's Zweibach's text that was intended for senior undergrads at MIT: http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-String-Theory/dp/0521880327

But, most professors I've talked to suggest learning QFT and learning it really well first before tackling string theory. Some popular QFT books are Peskin and Schroeder, and Srednicki.

Carroll

Carroll, course notes (free, I think it may be a preprint of the book)

Schutz

Wald

MTW (Some call it the GR bible)

They're all great books, Schutz I think is the most novice friendly but I believe they all cover tensor calculus and differential geometry in some detail.

Sure. If you're looking for something with absolutely no handholding whatsoever, here's what I use as a reference (not that I do much anymore): Howard Georgi's superb book. Though I wouldn't buy it without spending some time with a library copy first.

Incidentally for those for whom this has peaked an interest in this amazing man read his book 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman' (link goes to Amazon), among others.

Universities tend to accommodate not having dedicated the summer before first year to preparation: don't worry. They're not going to drop you in at the deep end and watch you struggle.

Being good with maths will never hurt in a physics degree, though. If you're desperate to do something, in your position I'd skim parts of the PH300 course in a book like RHB if you have one available. I wouldn't buy a copy just for that, personally, but your mileage my vary.

If computing is a large part of the course and you've never programmed before, another option would be to get ahead on that. I've never dealt with FORTRAN but a quick Google pointed out a lot of tutorials that might help.

Beyond that I'm not sure what to say: unless something else on (or off) the course really stands out to you, I'd peek at the maths and/or programming.

The other well known book is ashcroft and mermin http://www.amazon.com/Solid-State-Physics-Neil-Ashcroft/dp/0030839939 which has better reviews but still isn't regarded as amazing or anything

http://www.amazon.com/The-Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0PR4FET4HSKRNNR4Z1AR seems promising by the reviews.

Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy is a great book. It starts off with a science fiction story and goes on to explain the principles behind it. There's a little history in there too, which is always interesting. One issue, however, is that it's a little old now so may be a bit outdated.

I liked Sakurai for quantum mechanics. People say it's really difficult but I didn't find that at all, in fact I found it much easier than Shankar since there isn't a vast amount of mathematics in the first chapter, it just introduces you to exactly what you need to know.

I think that it is an unpopular opinion here but I think that you should do wave mechanics before going to Dirac's quantum mechanics, so I'd suggest Eisberg and Resnick before anything else https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X

Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering is an excellent book that covers most topics you will ever need for your undergrad degree.

If you're feeling ambitious I'd go with https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X and https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-Griffiths/dp/1108420419/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520528734&sr=1-1&keywords=griffiths+electrodynamics

You simply can't go past the Feynman Lectures on Physics for an approachable and enjoyable comprehensive introduction. Also available via bittorrent if you are poor (Feynman would approve).

There's also a support site (http://www.feynmanlectures.info/).

The Feynman lectures books and videos are really really good.

Textbook: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Anniversary-Edition/dp/1107002176


YouTube: http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-the-determined/

Free lecture notes: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/%7Ewatrous/LectureNotes.html

More causal reading (but still difficult):http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-since-Democritus-Aaronson/dp/0521199565

I've been thinking about buying QFT in a Nutshell. Better than Peskin & Schroeder ?

I think Physical Biology of the Cell is quite good.

I'd recommend Steven Simon's Oxford Solid State Basics. https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779

Used it in parallel with Kittel.

​

Alice in Quantum Land! It's a nice intro and very basic understanding of the quantum world.

I feel the need to plug Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering by Riley, Hobson, and Bence. It covers a vast range of everything you're going to need with good examples.

If you look online you can find pdfs of

"Physical Biology of the Cell"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503

This is a book that basically looks at biology through a physicist's lens, rather than a biochemist's.

You could also try "Biological Physics" by Nelson.


These books spend a good chunk of time dealing with topics such as Statistical Mechanics, Self-assembling structures, Polymer Physics, etc...

Can anyone recommend this book?

For an undergrad I would recommend

http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054

before moving on the MTW.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Never met a physicist who doesn't idolize him.

Also, there is A First Course in String Theory by Barton Zwiebach, a textbook about string theory specifically written for undergrads. It's definitely not an easy read, but it's not impossible to understand it.

What is probably the most-used textbook for quantum field theory:

Peskin & Schroeder

The Higgs is covered in chapter 20, I believe. I think you only really need to study chapters 1-7, whichever chapter has Goldstone's theorem (11?), 15-16, and 20 to get to the Higgs material and cover the basics of quantum field theory and the Standard Model, although this skips the deeper aspects of renormalization.

If I recall correctly, Feynman expanded on an idea that Dirac wrote in the appendices of his quantum mechanics text book. I imagine it was this text: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-Dirac/dp/0198520115

And I cannot comment on the propagator definition.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-Griffiths/dp/1108420419

​

a standard text used for physics majors E & M courses at many schools in the States

​

Nielsen and Chuang

A commonly used book for this exact purpose is Div, Grad, Curl by Schey.

Super-awesome book on classical physics: http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Circus-Physics-Jearl-Walker/dp/0471762733

http://www.amazon.com/General-Relativity-Robert-M-Wald/dp/0226870332

I believe what you are looking for is a textbook.

I take my Handbook of Physics Formulas by G. Woan into any of my undergrad open book exams - covers quantum to astrophysics.

Link.

Most of these are a little above the $15 but you get the general idea,

• Arduino UNO
  
• Rare earth magnets
  
• Newton's Cradle
  
• The Cambridge Handbook of Physics Formulas
  

Riley Hobson and Bence similarly has intro chapters on mostly all of that.

http://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-set-Set/dp/0201021153

Far from it, he's also one of three authors of one of the most famous GR books.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gravitation-Physics-Charles-W-Misner/dp/0716703440

... me too?

The canonical text. Sorry for the mobile link.

While /u/PlasticPrison gave an exhaustive list, I would only add one more, which at least in the US is considered a standard on this subject: Lie Algebras in Particle Physics by Georgi.

Are you familiar with Div, Grad, Curl, & All That. If not you'd probably enjoy it.

https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779 It's a fairly inexpensive book no matter the currency

You might want to read this book, by Kip Thorne:

Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0393312763/